Wednesday, 18 November 2015

A crowd of people entered Bethnal Green tube station which
was used at the time as an air-raid shelter. After the searchlights went on and
an anti-aircraft battery a few hundred yards away in Victoria Park launched a
salvo of a new type of anti-aircraft rockets the crowd surged forward. Someone
tripped on the stairs causing many others to fall. 300 people were crushed into
the stairwell within a few seconds, 173 of them died and over 90 were injured.

The memorial wasdesigned by local architect Harry Paticas. It is nearly complete and
just needs the teak ‘stairway’ that will go on the top.The inverted stairs will house 173 small
conical light shafts that will allow sunlight to shine through, each one
representing a person who died.